Believe – what do you believe in, return to the basics

If you are an Anglican or Roman Catholic, you may have said these words below in church on a Sunday, you may have said these words as part of the service, if you are not Anglican or Roman Catholic you may have also said these words or sang the song above or other songs with similar words in your church, the words from the song above are based on Apostles’ Creed the words of the creed can be found below, but what does it all mean, why is it important .

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church *, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Apostles’ Creed is an early statement of Christian belief, basis of faith and what the church which is the people should be like the church should never be inward looking but outward looking, in the creed it states Catholic, (note this word is not referring to the Roman Catholic church as such) Catholic as we can see above means all-embracing, the church should be diverse and all, embracing it should love and welcomes everyone and want to help people.

How far have we come, when some of our churches are inward looking, we need to go back to basics, we need a new view of God, the church which I said is the people i.e us and we need a new view on how god views us.God’s love and revelation - God’s love is unconditional you can, not earn God’s love, God’s love is unlimited you can, not put god in a box, he is unlimited so we need an unlimited view of him and allow him to work in our lives. God is for us and has our best interest at heart and wants to bless us, even if we mess up God still loves us and will not let us down, we need a daily revelation of who, God is and what he thinks of us. We need to change our view of God and how he views us. We need to ask God and read the word to find out what God thinks of us daily.The Father heart of god and his holiness - God wants us to come to him as we are, but he loves us so much he does not want us to remain the way we were, so he changes us into the people he wants us to be. God does not want us to carry the baggage of the past around with us and wants to heal us of it. God sent us his son to die on the cross to take away our sin and pay the price for that sin which is death, he died in our place, because he loved us. He wanted to save us from our shelves and our destructive patterns and make us right with him. We need to allow God to take away our baggage and allow him to heal usThe cross images and victory - Jesus paid a price for our sin because he was the only one that could do it. We have been brought from slavery, of death and sin, this means we are free. The price for that freedom was high and a sacrifice, the only one that could pay it, was God so he sent himself, the only response, to it is gratitude and to accept what he has done as a gift to us.

He has restored our relationship with god and he restores our identity and purpose for being. Jesus turns victims into victors and Jesus wants us to help people. Jesus has wiped the slate clean, he does not keep a record of our sins and gives us a new identity; we don’t need to hold onto shame. In the light of this, we need to get rid of negative things people have said to us or things we are ashamed of, by writing them down praying over them and throwing them away.The Nature and the correct handling of God’s word - Sometimes our life is like the computer term GIGO which means Garbage in, Garbage out, in other words, if we plant bad things i.e., things that harm us spiritually, we produce fruit that should not be there. We need the plant good seed into our lives i.e. the word and what God thinks of us, we need to spend time with God, we can sometimes be too busy running around for God that we forget the spend time with God.

God’s words do not return void if God says it will happen. God’s word can harm people if used wrongly, we need to learn to use it correctly and we should always use God’s word in love. In the light of this we need to build in down time in our lives where we can spend time with God and using the use the wasted times in my life i.e. traveling by bus productively by reading the word, praying and spending time with GodCorrect handling, purpose of God’s word - God word has the power to direct us, and empower us, set us free and tell us the truth about us, but used incorrectly it can harm people we should always use God’s word to build people up and use it with love and grace to help people and set them free. Jesus is our role model and we should always use God’s word as Jesus used the Word and we need the Holy Spirit to do this. God words don’t return void if God says it will happen, we need to trust God that the words placed on our lives will come true. God has a plan and a purpose for our life we need to trust God that he will lead us into it.Faith - You can be a Christian a long time and not know fully who Jesus is, we need an intimate relationship with him, to know who he is, We need to go deeper and have a more intimate relationship with him, how we view God determines how we view our world and our identity. We need to have passion, to know who he is and please him, worship is not just singing songs on a Sunday, worship should be our whole life, and it’s not about us it’s all about him.

We should be in God’s amazing story not him in ours. We need to trust who God is, if God says it will happen, God words don’t return void, also God knows us and knows what we need. We need to trust God and praise God in faith that things, we are praying for will come aboutReleasing power of faith - God has a plan for our lives, God knows what he wants us to do, God knows our destiny and the way to go, God prepares us for the thing he wants us to do. To grow in faith, we need to operate faith by doing what he wants us to do. When we pray about situations we need to be specific. Living in faith can lead to God giving us dreams and visions, God can give us specific words in our lives that impact our lives, we need to keep these words and stand on them. We need to find out what God wants us to do and do itNew covenant blessing and living in the power - We had messed up, we could not meet God’s perfect target for us to live by, so God sent his son Jesus to willingly die in our place and pay the price, because only he could meet the target and he loved us. God wants us to spend quality time with him, God wants us to be in his Amazing Story, he wants us to do life with him and do amazing things for god.

We should not rule our, selves out from God using us. God gives us the Holy Spirit to empower us for the work he wants us to do in our lives, and he gives the Holy Spirit freely and without limit. The same God who made the earth and the heavens is inside you. God wants to bless us and God wants the very best for us, God knows what we need, god does not want us to live in mediocre lives. We should allow God to use us more, and find out what he wants us to do, and spend more time with him.Worship - Worship should connect you to God, and it should change you and restore us, Worship is powerful, when we worship things happen. Worship is not something we do it’s who we are we should be worshippers it’s in our DNA, it involves all of us, not just singing songs on Sunday morning, we should be Extravagant with our worship, we should give our all for God. Worship comes out of a loving relationship with God and is our hearts response to a loving God, worship or service comes from our heart not because we have to do it but we want to do it, because we love him and he loves us, we should fall in love with him daily, we need to worship in the secret place, Worship is all about God, When we worship it’s not for us, it’s not for anyone else it’s all for God, God is the audience of one and all we do is for god.

You can, not earn God’s love he loves us anyway and loves to be with us. One of the root words of Worship is service, we need to serve God and Others, we need to reach out to the Least, The last and The lost and be Jesus and take Jesus to them, we need to allow him to love people.

God does not need our gifts and talents, he wants you. When things go wrong we should praise God, even when it’s hard to worship, god meets us in worship. We should fall in love with daily, and give him our all, the only way is to spend time with himHoly Spirit - The Holy Spirit is a person, not an it, he is not gas, or an object he is a him, he has a personality and can be hurt or grieved, he also speaks. The Holy Spirit is like Jesus living inside us and helps us live life and to pray. Holy Spirit guides us, the Holy Spirit is a gentleman and never forces us to do something we don’t want to do and The Holy Spirit never goes against the Gods word or will. Holy Spirit helps understand we are loved and accepted by God and confirms we are Gods children and belong to God Holy Spirit transforms us into the people God wants us to be and helps us do the things he wants us do. We need to receive the Holy Spirit daily, Holy Spirit Glorifies Jesus and points to him

Holy Spirit helps understand we are loved and accepted by God and confirms we are Gods children and belong to God Holy Spirit transforms us into the people God wants us to be and helps us do the things he wants us to do. We need to receive the Holy Spirit daily, Holy Spirit Glorifies Jesus and points to himConclusion - God’s love is unconditional you cannot earn God’s love, you cannot put god in a box, he is unlimited so we need an unlimited view of him.

God has an amazing plan for our lives and he wants to bless us God wants us in his amazing story, we should be in Gods story not he in ours God is for us not against us,

God wants us to come to him as we are, but he loves us so much he does not want us to remain the way we were but changes us into the people God wants us to be.

When Jesus died on the cross he restored our relationship with god and he restores our identity and purpose for being, it’s all about God, it’s not about me, we are doing everything for God because he first loved us. God’s words do not return void if God says it will happen.

God’s word has the power to direct us, and empower us, set us free and tell us the truth about us, but used incorrectly it can harm people which is something I have never thought before of that the word can harm people and that we should use it in love. Worship is in our DNA. God gives us the Holy Spirit to empower us for the work he wants us to do in our lives, and he gives the Holy Spirit freely and without limit.